U.S. Harpers Ferry Model 1842 Percussion Musket

The Model 1842 was the first regulation percussion musket to be
manufactured at both Springfield and Harpers Ferry Armories, as
well as the first to be produced by both national armories with
fully-interchangeable parts. These were also the last .69 caliber
smoothbore arms to be produced by the U.S. government.
Approximately 275,000 were manufactured between 1844 and 1855, with
nearly two-thirds of these produced at Springfield. Additional
examples were made under contract by A. H. Waters and Benjamin
Flagg of Milbury, Massachusetts, and at South Carolina's Palmetto
Armory.

The town of Harpers Ferry is nestled into a valley at the
confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. Originally located
in Virginia, Harpers Ferry became part of the new state of West
Virginia in 1863. The region abounded with natural resources,
including abundant water power, and it was also isolated from the
coastline and therefore secure from possible enemy attacks.
Riflesmiths, artisans, and other skilled workers also made their
homes in neighboring areas of Virginia, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania.

In 1798, President George Washington selected Harpers Ferry, as
well as Springfield, Massachusetts, as the location for a national
armory where small arms, ammunition, and other accouterments would
be produced for use by the new nation's military forces. In 1798,
tensions between the United States and France were on the rise, and
American militia forces drilled on the heights overlooking the
town. As the threat of war passed, the troops dispersed, leaving
Harpers Ferry to the care of armory workers and other residents.
Arms production began in 1800.

The first guns to be manufactured at Harpers Ferry were the Model
1795 muskets. These were patterned after the French Model 1763
Charleville musket, and were the first standardized U.S. martial
arms. Springfield Armory also produced a Model 1795 musket, but
these were distinctly different from those manufactured at Harpers
Ferry. In the early 19th century, Harpers Ferry began production of
the Model 1803 flintlock rifle. These distinctive arms, with their
Kentucky styling and half forestock, are considered by some to the
most beautiful rifles ever produced by the United States
government. The Model 1816 was first standardized U.S. martial arm
to be manufactured at both Harpers Ferry and Springfield.

These arms enjoyed the longest production run in U.S. history,
lasting until 1844, with nearly 700,000 muskets turned out during
this period. Both armories also produced the Model 1842 percussion
musket and Model 1855 percussion rifle-musket. These arms are
significant in that the Model 1842 was the last U.S. regulation .69
caliber smoothbore, as well as the first to be made at both
armories with completely interchangeable parts, while the Model
1855 rifle-musket was the first rifle-musket to be produced by the
United States, the first to be produced in the new regulation .58
caliber, and the last arm to be produced at both government
armories. In addition to commonly produced arms, each armory was
the sole producer of certain other designs, such as the Model 1855
percussion pistol-carbine and various musketoons and cadet muskets
that were produced solely at Springfield, or the Model 1803
flintlock rifle, and the Model 1841 percussion, or "Mississippi"
rifles that were produced only at Harpers Ferry.

In addition to its role in turning out government longarms,
Harpers Ferry also was home to John Hall's rifle works. Hall,a
Maine native, was an inventor who held various patents for
breech-loading rifles based on a removable pivot-mounted
breechblock. These arms were more expensive than muzzle-loaders,
but they could be loaded more quickly and were just as accurate. In
addition, Hall's rifles featured precision-manufactured
machine-made parts that were completely interchangeable, thus
eliminating the need for skilled craftsmen to repair broken arms.
The Hall rifle was the first in U.S. military history to use
fully-interchangeable parts. In 1817, at the invitation of the U.S.
Army, Hall relocated his operations from Maine to some unused
armory buildings on Virginius Island, located near the banks of the
Shenandoah River in Harpers Ferry.

Originally designed as flintlocks, later versions of the Hall
rifle featured a percussion ignition system. The first Hall rifles
were produced in 1824, and manufacture of these arms continued
until at Harpers Ferry until 1843. In addition, Hall rifles and
carbines were also produced by Simeon North of Middletown,
Connecticut. These arms served in the Black Hawk War of 1832, the
Seminole War in 1836, the Mexican War, and, although outdated, Hall
rifles also saw action with Confederate troops during the Civil
War. The presence of the armory in Harpers Ferry, as well as its
location on the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, and the presence of
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio
Canal, made the town strategically important.

Prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, Harpers Ferry became known
as the site of John Brown's failed slave insurrection in 1859.
After Virginia voters passed an ordinance of secession in 1861, the
town was occupied by Confederate soldiers under the command of
Colonel Turner Ashby. Retreating U.S. troops had tried to burn the
armory complex, but local residents, fearing that the entire town
would be engulfed, quickly extinguished most of the fires. The
Confederates removed armory machinery, tools, rifles, and parts to
Richmond, Virginia and Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the
Confederate government began to manufacture longarms based on the
U.S. Model 1855 rifle design.

Before the war ended in 1865, the town had changed hands no less
than eleven times. Many buildings had been looted or burned, and
the B&O railroad bridge had also been destroyed and rebuilt
several times. Townspeople were forced to flee both the advancing
armies and the lack of economic opportunity that resulted after the
armory had ceased operations.

The Civil War brought an abrupt and premature end to arms
production at Harpers Ferry. This armory was never as progressive
as its sister arsenal at Springfield, where enterprising Yankees
more readily seized new technologies, while their southern brothers
were more likely to stick to tried-and-true but often more
labor-intensive production techniques.

Springfield workers also outproduced those of Harpers Ferry to a
significant degree, but part of Springfield's advantage might lay
in its less diversified product line. In addition, production costs
were higher at Harpers Ferry than at Springfield, and the town was
subject to repeated disruption due to frequent flooding of its
surrounding rivers.

Despite these shortcomings, Harpers Ferry Armory achieved
notoriety as the birthplace of what became known as the "American
System of Manufacture," in which full interchangeability of
precision-made parts between mechanical devices manufactured in
more than one location was achieved for the first time. This
feature would later play an important role in the Industrial
Revolution and in the rise of the United States to the position of
"workshop of the world."